


Futile Devices

by Mooncactus



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: F/M, leaning into that villain romance undercurrent, skulduggery pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-29
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-01-06 21:16:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12219129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mooncactus/pseuds/Mooncactus
Summary: Five months of failing to make her laugh, and now Valkyrie’s blood is literally on his hands.SPX spoilers.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The dedication for this fic comes in haiku form:
> 
> Dear Male SP fans  
> The Power of Love’s Not “Dumb”  
> Kindly Eat My Farts

_but saying it out loud_

_is hard_

_so i won’t say it at all_

* * *

i.

She’s not answering the door, but he’s not worried.

He can hear her voice from inside the house (along with a male voice - that must be the Danny she mentioned) and he doesn’t mind waiting as they say goodbyes. What’s another few minutes?

He didn’t bring anything with him - he’s got the keys to the rental car in one pocket, his phone in the other, and a bouquet cradled in his arms. That’s it.

And of course, a prepared opening line rattling around his skull.

Two and a half years ago, he had caught himself before he had a choked out a certain set of words in the form of goodbye over the phone. He didn’t know where it had come from; Valkyrie never said it on the brief phone calls they shared, though he did get an occasional _I miss you_ , and he had obviously never used those words to sign off phone calls with anyone else. He stuttered a bit, switched it to his usual “come home,” and Valkyrie returned with her usual “soon”, and was none the wiser. He had placed down his phone, and realized his hand was trembling.

The last conversation they had - the last real one - was in front of the Accelerator. It, in hindsight, was not his finest moment. Valkyrie had left for America less than two months later, and they had been awkward and tense those six weeks. Now all they had was phone calls. He apologized on the phone, once, and he just got a mumbled, “no, it’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

He had never said it back.

But he will, right now. He’ll say it right to her face, won’t waste a second. Door open, those three words, bam.

“Magic,” she says, from the other side of the door, and he straightens up. He hears footsteps - not hers - a door creaking open, and then a deep inhale.

Two steps, and then the door opens.

She looks at him, and then down at her flowers, and blinks, hard.

“Wha-- why?”

Skulduggery can’t speak. It’s too much, somehow, the crease in her forehead, the purse of her lips, the way her eyelashes flutter as she stares up at him. She’s not mad, just confused.

Words fail him. It’s stupid, really, as all he has to do is add a “because” to said prepared opening line, but instead, he says:

“Isn’t this what people usually do?”

“I mean, I guess,” she says, taking them in her arms. She nestles her face into them, greedily inhaling the scent, and the lump of muscle that had burned to nothing centuries ago slams painfully against Skulduggery’s ribs.

He had spent an hour and a half picking out the flowers while waiting for Valkyrie’s text telling him to drive over - it’d been a long time since he had any use for the language of flowers, but thankfully one of the botanists at the shop was incredibly excited at the prospect. Together they had picked out asters, daffodils, hydrangea, and tulips, along with a couple others to make the bouquet a little less haphazard looking. He paid a, quite frankly, ridiculous sum of money for it, considering that he used to pick wildflowers by hand, but that - it was a different time.

Valkyrie’s face is still buried when she speaks. “I don’t think anyone has ever gotten me flowers before. Despite the weekly hospital visits.”

“Well, that’s mundane. This is … a unique situation.”

She looks up at him, and swallows. “... Yeah.”

She’s got a band-aid across her forehead and her hair is pulled off into a high ponytail. It’s almost too much, and he can’t look her in the eye for longer for a few seconds. Not like she can really tell. She sucks in another deep breath - in through the nose and out the mouth, just like he taught her - and then places the flowers down on top of her sofa. “I’m going to grab my bags,” she says, and walks past him.

He expects a hug. He doesn’t get one.

He watches her walk away, and he realizes she’s taller. Only a little. Level with the tops of his cheek bones instead of the bottoms. Things you don’t pick up from phone calls.

She turns to look back at him, and her smile doesn’t meet her eyes.

Another something that you don’t pick up from phone calls.

“This must be Xena,” he says, addressing the giant dog travel crate.

“Yeah,” Valkyrie says, voice soft. “I’d wake her up so you can meet her, but I think it’s best if she sleeps through as much of this as possible.”

“We’ve got plenty of time,” Skulduggery says, and Valkyrie’s shoulder jolt up towards her ears, before she slowly rolls them back down.

“Yep,” she says, cheerily, facing away from him. Her tone is hollow, and he plucks a stray thread off his sleeve and reminds himself that there’s nothing to worry about.

“Meek Ridge is nice,” Skulduggery says, to fill the silence, and wants to smack his head against the mantle the second he says it, a pathetic attempt at small talk. Valkyrie doesn’t respond, just continues packing small things.

Skulduggery barely knows anything about Meek Ridge - it was the smallest town he had ever been in America. It was Denver where he bought the flowers, and he liked Denver plenty. It was flat, flat in all directions - despite the nearby mountains - and had a ravenous bright blue sky that took over the entire horizon. People were friendly and the airport tram played jaunty music and had a vaguely passive aggressive voice over. It was amusing.

“Have you heard of Blucifer?” Skulduggery says.

This actually gets Valkyrie to lift her head up and crack a smile. “Of course. Hard miss a giant blue horse statue. Apparently he killed his creator?”

“Like Cronus before him.”

The smile widens, just a little. She returns to packing, tucking an escaped strand of hair behind her ear.

“So are we flying out of here? Not … teleporting?”

He shook his head. “I thought this might be … easier.”

She nods, which is a relief, and shuffles on her knees to grab an already packed bag.

“We’ll be arriving at one pm in Dublin,” Skulduggery says, as she double checks the pockets of her duffle.

Valkyrie’s head pokes up again. “How the hell are the flowers going to last that long?”

Skulduggery stills. The flowers were more of a grand gesture than any attempt at longevity, but…

He points at a bright blue vase on top of the mantle.

“Oh,” Valkyrie says, making a face. “Yeah. The house came pre-furnished with that.”

“It's … lovely.”

“It's heinous.”

“It is a little heinous,” he admits, but picks it off the mantle nonetheless. He brings it over to her sink while she recovers the bouquet and sniffs it again, looking happy.

He thinks. (He hopes.)

\--

ii.

“Are you serious? This counts as _a carry on?”_

“Ma’am,” says the woman behind the counter, patience either infinite or very well faked. “You can check your bag instead, and bring the flowers as a carry on. But you can’t take the vase, it’s too much water.”

“But they’ll die without it,” Valkyrie says, leaning in towards her. “Can’t you--”

“Valkyrie,” says Skulduggery, from right behind her shoulder. “It’s okay. Just … toss them.”

Valkyrie looks at him. “But--”

“They’ll die anyway,” he says, voice soft. “It’s okay.”

Valkyrie stares at him, and then her hand flexes at her side. “Okay,” she says. “Okay.”

The whole thing - vase, water, and flowers - drops from her arms into the closest rubbish bin, and Valkyrie stands there, staring down at them. Then a McDonald’s bag crumbled into a ball gets tossed down on top of them, and Valkyrie’s trance is broken

“Valkyrie,” Skulduggery says again, reaching for her hand, but it slips through his gloved fingers.

“Sucks,” she says, voice flat, and then she grabs the handle of her suitcase and walks away from the trash can.

Skulduggery looks back - the glass of the vase has cracked, and the water is everywhere.

He didn’t want to point it out to Valkyrie, but they’ve been leaving a trail of petals ever since they got out of the rental car anyway.

He abandons the trashcan, and follows Valkyrie to the boarding area. They sit, in the back where no one can overhear them. The airport is massive, echoing, with more people than he’s seen in years, and it makes Skulduggery feel very small in a way he isn’t used to.

“How do you even get on planes?” Valkyrie asks. “I mean, with the whole lack of face thing.”

“I’ve got identification that changes to match my facade,” Skulduggery responds. He’s holding all of their papers and identification in his suit jacket, so he pulls out the whole set and extracts his fake ID, handing to her.

“Stephen,” says Valkyrie, holding up the card to compare. The match wasn’t exact - there was no way to match every mole and scar to every facade - but it was close enough.  “With a ph. Wow. Stellar fake name.”

“We match,” he says with a smile, tapping her ID.

She frowns, and then looks down at his finger, underlining “STEPHANIE EDGLEY”.

“Right,” she says. “Right, yeah.”

“Did they -” he hesitates, and then starts again. “Did they call you that, in Meek Ridge? Or - I know you’ve used Valerie before -”

“No,” she says, “no, it was Stephanie. I just never … “ she shakes her head slightly. “Never thought of it as _fake_ before.”

“That’s not what I …” Skulduggery started, but Valkyrie shook her head again, and kept a steady eye on the screen above them announcing delays and arrivals.

The first flight leaves shortly after, and Skulduggery gets a few answers out of Valkyrie before he relents and leaves her alone. He wants to ask about the men who attacked her, but -

But if he gets a flat “no” after he jokingly asks if she’s a Masterchef now, then it’s probably best to wait.

After all, they had time. They had so much time.

On the second flight - the long one, taking them across the sea - she curls into herself, a tight ball, her head turned towards the window and away from him. He asks her another light hearted question about Meek Ridge and she pretends not to have heard him, and that’s that, he supposes.

There’s a kid sitting on Skulduggery’s right, in the aisle seat: a small girl with choppy fringe and lips so dry there’s a faint split down the bottom one. When Skulduggery leans back into his seat and away from Valkyrie, she wastes no time in introducing herself.

Her parents are divorced. One lives in Utah, the other London. She’s about to start school in England for the first time, and she’s understandably confused by the fact she had just finished second grade, but will be entering year four. Her name is Circe ... or maybe Cersei. (She was just a little too old, but her parents might have been book fans.)

The girl is only a little bit older than Alice.

Valkyrie won’t even look at her.

The flight attendants keep coming by to fuss at her, kneeling down to her eye level and talking in sweet voices.

“Maybe you should let this nice man sleep,” suggests one, and Skulduggery dismisses this idea with a hand.

“I’m on a different time zone,” he says, instead of the equally true but infinitely more pathetic, _‘my best friend is refusing to talk to me, so I’ll take what I get’._ “I don’t mind.”

The flight attendant looks at him, her lips pursing, like she’s trying to figure out if it’s responsible to leave her temporary charge talking to a grown up stranger, and then her shoulders drooped. The universal body language for _even if, I’m not paid enough for this._

Circe-maybe-Cersei had done this flight a million times, and around two am fakes sleep whenever an attendant comes by to check on her. Valkyrie, on the other hand, is genuinely fast asleep, her palm open on the armrest like she’s begging for change.

Cersei-maybe-Circe stares at Skulduggery’s false face, chin atop her pillow/stuffed animal. (The pig from Moana. Earlier, he had told her he preferred Zootopia, and she had ignored him for nearly half an hour.)

His gloved hand reaches tentatively for Valkyrie’s open hand, and then it stops.

“You missed her a lot,” observes Circe-maybe-Cersei.

“I did,” he says, taking in the unkempt state of the underside of Valkyrie’s eyebrows, the mole on her neck, the cupid’s bow curves of her upper lip.

“Did she miss you?”

He takes a long, long, long time to respond.

“I think,” he says.

She takes his hand in her tiny one, and falls asleep like that, and Skulduggery stares at the top of Valkyrie’s head as the morning drags itself slowly and painfully to shore.

Later, while Valkyrie is in the airport bathroom, Skulduggery sees Cersei-maybe-Circe sitting up on a chair behind an information desk, her feet dangling. There’s a man in a airport uniform asking a woman questions while she fills out paperwork verifying the child in front of her is, in fact, hers’,  and Circe-maybe-Cersei looks bored out of her mind.

Skulduggery ducks into a store, dragging Valkyrie’s suitcase behind him, and when he reemerges, Valkyrie is waiting for him, shifting her weight as she got a better hold on her massive carry-on duffle bag.

“That,” she says, “was one of the worst bathrooms I’ve ever seen.”

Skulduggery nods, waits for her to say something else. She doesn’t. They keep walking, and when they pass Cersei-maybe-Circe and her entourage of adults, Skulduggery throws something high and the girl catches it above her head in both hands. Grinning, she opens her palms to reveal a Zootopia keychain. She makes a face at him. Skulduggery beams, and then catches Valkyrie staring at him.

They make eye contact, and Valkyrie immediately breaks it.

They keep going.

The third flight is the shortest. Skulduggery doesn’t bother trying to start up conversation as they board; even he’s exhausted, and he’s technically immune to jet lag. While he’s putting her bags up in the overhead compartment, she stares at something over his shoulder, eyes wide and horrified.

“No. No, no, not here--” she says, voice low and scared, and Skulduggery shoves the bag back with air magic, not caring who sees.

“Valkyrie? Valkyrie, what is it?”

She freezes, face pale. “Nothing. Sorry, thought I saw someone I went to school with.”

His hand stills in the air, hovering above her shoulder. Valkyrie stares at it, expression wary, and he tucked it into his suit jacket.

“Okay,” he says. “If that’s all.”

“That’s all,” she says, nodding, and takes her seat at the window.

He follows.

\--

iii.

She asks for a few days to settle in, and he complies. When she doesn’t answer his phone call a week after, he shows up at her door.

She opens the door, wearing a t-shirt and workout shorts, the locks trailing down it only allowing it to open a fraction.

“Don’t do that,” she says.

“Do what?” he asks, genuinely baffled.

“This,” she says, gesturing. Annoyed. “Showing up unannounced, popping up at my door--”

“I’m … sorry,” he says, still lost. “I was worried.”

“Why?”

“You didn’t answer my calls. I didn’t know what happened to you.”

Valkyrie frowns, and then reached over to a table. He saw he grab her phone - saw his five voicemails pop up on the screen, all notifications unread.

“Oh,” she says. “Oh. Right. Sorry.” She takes a big breath. “I’m okay. I don’t always, um - I have my phone on silent a lot. It wakes up Xena. I’m fine.”

He nods. “Do you want… is there anything I can do? Pick something up for you for dinner…?”

“I’m fine,” she says. “Went grocery shopping yesterday. … Thank you.”

Skulduggery knows a dismissal when he hears one, and he straightens, nodding. “Right. I’ll be off then.”

“Wait,” she says, and Skulduggery turns back so quickly he nearly gets whiplash. Valkyrie squeezes her eyes shut. “Just a few more days.”

“Of course,” he says. “Take as long as you need.”

The next few weeks are much of the same. Valkyrie is distant, jumpy, quiet. She rarely smiles, and never laughs, and he has never felt so desperately out of control. Her dog is the only thing she shows any sign of joy about, and for a few days, he is, in fact, pathetic enough to hate the German Shepherd for it.

Progress is slow, so, so slow. He manages to convince her to tour Roarhaven, and she stares at it with a sort of dead eyed awe. They drive there at night, to avoid the stares, and he takes care to drive around any sort of Devastation Memorial, but she still looks at him, expression hapless.

“Jesus Christ,” she says. “I can barely recognize it.”

A few days later she tells him that her parents are picking her up from Gordon’s for a welcome back dinner. It’s over the phone, so he can almost pretend she’s happy about it. He gets a text the following evening - “please pick me up”, and obliges, parking where he usually does at the Edgley family home.

“How’d it go?” he says, softly, as she storms in, wearing a nice dress and heels. She slides into the passenger seat, gaze steely and steadfastly forward.

“Drive.”

“Valkyrie?”

“ _Just drive.”_

He does.

\--

iv.

It’s always more time. A few days was what she asked from him at first. Then a few more days. Then a week. Then a few more weeks.

Fall turns into winter. Christmas passes, and then his birthday, and the first of the year immediately after. She apologizes for missing all three over the phone, genuine distress in her voice, and he holds the phone to the side of his skull and thinks those three words over and over but doesn’t say them; because it’ll only make things worse, because he should have already said them, because he’s a coward.

Arbiter work is slow, but it’s better than desk work. He sends Temple Fray on an undercover mission, half out of boredom.

He waits.

\--

v.

Temper Fray won’t answer his phone.

Temper Fray’s neighbors haven’t seen him.

Temper Fray is probably dead.

Missing at the very least.

Skulduggery puts his head in his hands and stares miserably at his front door, like he can will it into opening and revealing Temper, safe and sound. Temper was - and Skulduggery was keenly aware of this - a band-aid, a friend and temporary partner until Valkyrie got back in the saddle. He helped handled things, investigate strange happenings in Roarhaven, make Skulduggery feel like he was actually accomplishing something. If Temper is missing or murdered, not only is he out another partner, but he has an actual problem to solve, and he really, really, really didn’t need any more problems.

Fuck.

Skulduggery pages through the registrar of students Peccant had given him - there wasn’t anything incriminating on it, nothing to even indicate what its purpose was. It was the same thing a professor would be given before school started; a list of names and accompanying school pictures. Ordinary except for the little hand drawn stars underneath the names. This was to indicate how useful Peccant thought the students would be at being undercover; he asked not to be told who Skulduggery picked, to stay as impartial as possible.

To give whoever this student was the best chance at being invisible.

Skulduggery flicks through the pages for the hundredth time, stopping at the face of a handsome young boy, smile charmingly troubled. Auger Darkly, who had apparently accidentally named himself after a small drill. He was the anti Valkyrie Cain, blessed with a heroic destiny, meant to save everyone.

Or cursed.

The Darkly prophecy had predated Auger’s birth by ten years - Skulduggery had even heard that it was how his parents met, their romance named and assigned by fate. He had spent his entire life training, and, since he was about ten or eleven, had picked up some other end of the world catastrophes in his spare time. Which Skulduggery was grateful for, of course; he always felt like he should send a box of candy whenever he returned to Roarhaven and learned that Auger had averted some disaster that usually Skulduggery and Valkyrie would handle.

He looks closer at the boy. Maybe this boy was Valkyrie’s answer. Someone she could mentor, someone who could understand better than most the kind of role she grew into it. Perhaps his humble heroic ways would ground her.

Or she would furiously hate him.

Obviously, beneath Auger’s name there are no stars: he was the most famous student of the school by a country mile. Probably the most famous mage in their teens, now that Valkyrie was pushing twenty five. Skulduggery’s gaze falls across the row, to a boy who must have been his brother, marked with one star. Of course: being the chosen one’s brother must also mean living in the spotlight. Although Skulduggery hadn’t ever heard the name Omen Darkly before - the prophecy had neatly skipped over him, like he was no more than an afterthought. Had whatever Sensitive who had penned the prophecy even know he was coming? Was he planned, too, as someone to help lead his brother to victory? Or maybe just a pair of backup organs, just in case?

A smudged set of features came to the forefront of Skulduggery’s mind - a man he could not have helped, even if destiny had demanded it. Skulduggery Pleasant didn’t believe in fate, but he knew there was no world where both he and his brother survived the war.

He returns to paging through - no one had received five stars, although a few got four - and then realizes he could not bring Auger’s brother’s face to mind.

He flips back to the twins’ page, studies the picture for a moment, and then closes the registrar.

Again: gone in a flash. Not handsome, not ugly, just … a fourteen year old boy.

One who had lived in the shadow of his brother his entire life.

Skulduggery nods to himself, decided. Now for the hard part. He picks a three piece suit and a handsome face to match. He hesitates on the call button.

… If he calls her while he was driving through her gate, he isn’t technically showing up at her door unannounced, was he?

His fake face in his full length mirror gives him a “you're pathetic” look. He agrees.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! i got horrifically sick right after the last update and then apparently forgot how to write, lmao.
> 
> This chapter's a bit unusual for me because I was directly rewriting book scenes! We pick up during chapter 31, and all of the dialogue from sections 1 and 2 are directly lifted from the book. Section 3 is all me again.
> 
> Nooot sure how much I like writing like this, so I might try to avoid doing it too much in further updates. but MAN, writing evil skul pov is fun.

i.

A  less stubborn man might admit that the past forty hours were not “going well”. Skulduggery had hoped getting her out into the world, having her see actual breathing people again, would bring her back to reality. Bring her back to the girl who disappeared somewhere during the long hours of Devastation Day ... or perhaps had never really came back after she disappeared in the temple of the Brides of Blood Tears.

For every starry eyed Omen, there had been a dozen cold glares and hissed insults, and he had been relieved to leave the fist fights and balcony jumping of Roarhaven behind for the quiet of Cassandra’s home. Had tried to take a breather, to share a nice moment.

_ We’re lovers, and that’s a fact, _ he had sung. To the dog.

And then Valkyrie had gotten a vision,  _ hopefully  _ of an evil old lady, he  _ prayed  _ to the god he didn’t believe in it was some random evil old lady, whom he had never met before, ever --  _ anyway _ . Then he got his ass kicked. 

Badly.

So yes, maybe things weren’t going  _ well _ , but that didn’t mean they were going “not well”. But he had gotten twenty four more hours from her, and this point, it was just better for both the sake of the mission and his own mental well being to see that as a success, so a success it was.

Now, he was sitting in Richard Melior’s apartment, nursing sore ribs and sorer pride, although still maintaining a surprisingly sunny disposition. Despite being rather peeved with Melior he felt an unexpected pang of sympathy for the man when he talked about his husband. Five years gone … five years ago, the Sanctuaries of the world were too much in chaos to find a misplaced stapler, much less a missing husband.

“--Every so often, I’ll get a voice message telling me he loves me, telling me to be strong…” Melior continued.

Valkyrie frown deepens. “Why go to the trouble of kidnapping him, though? Why doesn’t Smoke just corrupt you?”

“His touch doesn’t work on healers. I don’t know why. I think it’s something to do with our power, maybe it acts as a immune system to his influence.”

This, despite sounding like utter bullshit to Skulduggery, makes Valkyrie nod. “Your aura’s different.”

Skulduggery’s head turns towards her. 

“It’s a different shade of orange,” she explains, and he relaxes. Good. Not as cool as red.

“I don’t know anything about auras,” Melior says, “but whenever the reason, they needed some other way to control me.”

“And Lethe’s in charge?”

“No,” Melior says, shaking his head. “He does what he’s told, same as everyone.”

“So who tells him what to do? Is there another Balerosh that we don’t know about?”

“Not as far as I’m aware.” Melior winces. “...It’s the voice in his head.”

Oh. Good. “I’m sorry?”

“They all hear it. It’s their leader. I don’t know anything about her, I don’t know where she is, but I overhead some of them talking and they said a name. Abyssinia.”

Ah.

Fuck.

It could be, he thought, a popular taken name these days, couldn’t it? It was very dark and ominous. Trendy. Like Murder Rose, or Iratica, or Ebony.

“You know who that is?” Valkyrie asks him.

Skulduggery exhales slowly. “I might. I’ve only only known one Abyssinia in all my years.”

Valkyrie’s looked up, like she was remembering something. “... Does she have silver hair?”

So  _ not  _ an evil old lady. 

“She does.” He turns back to Melior. “Doctor, what were you told about your role in all this? What do they need you to do?”

“Please call me Richard. From what I can gather, I’m to facilitate a resurrection.”

Skulduggery hears a collection of swears that hadn’t been used by mortals in centuries parade across his mind.

Things were officially  _ not well. _

\--

ii.

These are the things Skulduggery was trying to focus on, when they left the bedroom and returned to Melior.

  1. The fact his ex girlfriend was trying to come back to life. Bad. Very bad. 
  2. The fact that said ex girlfriend had managed to, in death, express more magic than she had possessed in her living years. The Abyssinia he knew had no sensitive abilities, and thank god for that, she would have never left him alone. But yes. Also bad.
  3. That Abyssinia might have been a princess. Darklands was a stupid name, he had to admit. Once more, very edgy. Did they have meetings to decide on these names?
  4. The fact that there were cannibals running around during Mevolent’s era. He had totally forgotten about that. That was weird.



(Things he should not be focusing on, shouldn’t even be thinking of: the words “skeleton booty call”. The fact that Valkyrie had even assumed that timeline for their relationship. The way she couldn’t meet his gaze after she said it; the blood rushing to her face. The fact he had never told anyone that before and she didn’t -- that she didn’t  _ hate  _ him for it, didn’t sneer at him for staying with her…)

No, no, not relevant, not important, and now he's just missed the last thing Melior had said. He snapped back to focus.

“... Oh dear God. They knew I’d need Neoterics. That’s why they’ve been recruiting them.”

“So not only has Abyssinia built up a small army awaiting her return, but she’s also been using the process to hunt for donors. Infuriating clever. But if they took for husband to force you to work for them, and nothing has changed, then why come to us now?”

“Because things have changed,” says Melior. “They’re so close to getting what they want that they wouldn’t dare kill him now. They need me too much. So I figure there’s an opportunity, right? Now is the time to strike, isn’t it?” He glances desperately between the two of them, searching for validation. “Isn’t it?”

Valkyrie gives Skulduggery a “you answer this” look.

“You actually have a point,” Skulduggery relents. “Savant’s probably never been safer than he is right now.”

Melior exhales in joyful relief. “Exactly! So we go after them.” He gestures out towards them and then brought his hands inward. “The three of us. If they’re keeping Savant anywhere, they’ll be keeping him in that prison, right? That makes sense, doesn’t it? Where better to keep a prisoner?”

He’s eager, a man who thought he was on the edge of a breakthrough. This time Skulduggery glances at Valkyrie.  _ Your turn. _

“How much… how much do you know about Coldheart?”

“I know it’s pretty much impenetrable. Only two people have ever escaped from it. I’m not saying it’ll be easy, but you two have accomplished  _ miracles _ together.”

Valkyrie flinches at the word.

“I’ve heard the stories,” he says, giving her a gentle look, misinterpreting the expression on her face.

“And did you know that it moves?” Skulduggery says slowly.

“What… what moves?”

“The prison. It doesn’t stay in one places. It’s a floating island. It could be anywhere in the world right now.”

Melior’s complexion is ghostly. “No, no, please…”

“Richard, even if we found Coldheart, even if we were able to break in, there’s no guarantee that Savant would still be alive.”

At this, though, Melior scoffs. “I don’t accept that and I don’t believe it. He’s  _ alive.  _ I would know if he wasn’t alive.”

“It’s been five years,” Skulduggery says, trying for gentle.

Melior smiles tightly. “And if we were mortals, that’d mean something. But we’re not, are we? Five years apart means  _ nothing _ to people like us.”

Skulduggery looks at Valkyrie before he even realizes what he’s doing. She’s only a few feet away from him, tense in her jacket and jeans, the zipper pulled all the way to the base of her throat. She meets his gaze for a moment and then drops her own, staring intently at his tie.

He would get her back. He had to. Melior believed in them, believed in their  _ miracles _ .

The least he could do was believe in him and Savant.

He shrugs. “So let’s go rescue the love of your life,” he says, and leads their motley procession downstairs.

He reaches the door, opening it and leaving it open behind him, and realizes ‘love of your life’ was maybe a bit of a loaded statement, maybe not something he should have said in front of Valkyrie; it wasn’t the right time, it might not ever be the right time -

He looks up and sees Smoke’s smug face as he grabs for him.

Skulduggery smacks the other man’s hand away, reaches for his jacket with both hands and pulled the other man until he had a better grasp, gathering the air around them to--

Hmm.

Skulduggery lets go of Smoke’s jacket, and stares at his gloved hands, aware of a very curious feeling. Tingly, even. Refreshing. Freeing.

He was getting ready to kill.

He tilts his head, feeling the air move as Melior jumped backwards.

“Run,” says Melior, and Valkyrie took a hesitant step back and then another, and then spun away from him, fear brightening her beautiful dark eyes. She glances back.

Ooh, rookie mistake. He’s taught her better than that.

“Yes,” he says, finding this terribly funny. “Run.”

Melior, he ignores. Melior he doesn’t particularly care about. He barely knows the man. All he’s really figured out is that he’s annoying and a little pathetic for pursuing his husband so relentlessly after five years of failure. 

But  _ Valkyrie.  _

Oh,  _ Valkyrie Cain. _

She’s consumed his every thought for  _ at least _ seven years, and now those thoughts are filled with a kaleidoscope of memories. Valkyrie Cain with a bloodied mouth, Valkyrie Cain with a gouged eye and broken bones, Valkyrie Cain with matching black eyes, Valkyrie Cain without a head (alright, he hadn’t actually seen that one, but he could imagine). Valkyrie Cain blushing prettily, the blood rushing to her face. So much blood, these last twelve years. 

He takes the stairs at the run, feeling leisurely. She’s breathing hard and keeping ahead of him, and he watches as she slips through the window and lands heavily on the Bentley, setting off the car alarm.

He tilts his head. Irritating.

He takes the time to calmly point the clicker and reset the alarm before floating up and after her, in no rush. Valkyrie is slow. He skips the building; he’d have to shoot the people in there, and he really couldn't care less. No need to waste the bullets. He removes his gun from its holster, glad he hadn’t actually had to shoot Melior in the leg at any point. No, everything was in order.

No one notices him below; they’re too busy trying to sort out the chaos Valkyrie leaves behind in her rapid fire sprint. He hears their voices, hears a faint “Valkyrie Cain?” “--Darquesse”, “-- that fucking bitch--”

He reconsiders the “no shooting” rule. It’d be very easy. He’s got a clear shot. 

Skulduggery hears an explosion of noise and his head jolts back up. Right, right, she was getting away. Nice to give her a head start, a bit of hope was always fun. 

He finds her easily - a bull in a china shop, her body a rapid bullet blasting through the air of the street - and picks her up like a miscreant kitten with the air. He drops her and she rolls into a ball, protecting her head but smacking her elbow hard into the pavement.

Skulduggery winces. It’s been a long, long, long time since he’s had nerves, but he remembers the the teeth wobbling sensation of the ulnar nerve quite well. Or maybe she genuinely cracked a bone. She’s on her feet again in a second -  _ that’s  _ his girl - and was ready to bolt again when she noticed him.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he says, gently, an idea forming in his own mind. He empties the chambers of his Smith and Wesson of all but one bullet, pocketing the others. “You’re thinking, oh god, oh god, I’m going to die. You’re thinking, how can I stop him? Can he even be stopped? Is this the end of the  _ infamous _ Valkyrie Cain?”

He always knew he had a gift for theatre.

He puts the bullet back in, closes it with a flourish.

She is frozen.

“I don’t have an answer for you, Valkyrie. For today, I’m leaving your fate up to chance.” He thumbs back the hammer. “Six chambers. One bullet.”

Valkyrie swallows.

“Do you want to find out if the universe still loves you?”

He feels the air between the spaces of the gun. There’s no bullet in this chamber. 

He still aims and pulls.

Valkyrie jolts, but stands stock still.

“Have you ever thought about this?” he asks, genuinely curious. “What it would be like to go up against each other. I don’t mean as Darquesse and Vile, I mean you and me. Do you think you stand a chance?”

Her pale throat bobs beneath her jacket collar. “I don’t know. But if you really--”

He cuts her off with another shot. (Another empty chamber.)

“Sorry. What were you saying?”

“You’re … you’re not going to kill me,” she says. Not too confidently, mind you.

“I’m not?” he asks, surprised.

“You won’t. You can’t. I mean too much to you.”

And what did he matter to her?

He sends the thought away. “You should understand, Valkyrie, that I really don’t care about you any more. In fact, I genuinely want you to die, and I want to be the one to kill you.”

To cradle her dark head between his gloved fingers, to see her lips choke out a last desperate breath.

To have her reach out to touch him, for the first time in five years, for the  _ last  _ time.

“Y-you think you do,” she says, her terrified stutter reminding him of his own. His only manifested with extreme anxiety these days, though. Was this anxiety? Hmm. “B-but you’ve been c-corrupted, Skulduggery, you have to remember.”

He gives her a skeptical look. “Well, of course I remember, and of course I only want to kill you because of Smoke’s pesky little power. But that doesn’t change the fact that I genuinely want to kill you.”

Valkyrie’s face looks like she thought it did. Annoying.

“Please,” she says, voice soft. “You’ve got to fight it.”

“No, I don’t.” The gun follows her as she swerves left, and he fires again. 

He fakes surprise. “Today really is your lucky day, isn’t it? Tell you what - if the next two are empty, for the last one I’ll only shoot you in the leg. How about that?”

She puts her hands up, rather ungratefully.

“You’re being manipulated. Are you okay with that? With someone pulling your strings?”

A song from Pinocchio popped into his head. 

“I’ll deal with all that in my own time, don’t worry.” He hummed a refrain of the Disney song as she spoke, trying to remember the lyrics.

“Skulduggery,” she says, voice flat. “You’re my best friend and I love you.”

She can’t even say it like she means it.

“That is so sweet of you to say-- put your hands down, Valkyrie, I’m too far away for you to hit, and we both know you can’t rely on your new powers. They’re far too unstable.” He pauses. “So are you, for that matter.”

She drops her hands. Good girl. “Fine,” she says.

“... Fine?”

“If you’re going to kill me, kill me. I’d rather you do it than anyone else.”

He’s flattered for a moment, and then realizes she’s bluffing. Aw.

“Oh, I see. You think I’ll stop myself. You’re betting your life on it.”

“Yes.”

“ _ Annnd _ what if you’re wrong? What if, the moment I stop speaking, I put my gun to your head and blow your semi-remarkable brains out? In your finals moments, how much are you going to regret these  _ last  five years? _ ” His voice lowers, grows bitter. “How much are you going to regret that you’ve refused to rejoin your family, that you’ve cut yourself off from so many of the vulnerabilities that make you who you are. Are you going to find yourself wishing, and the bullet pulverises all that grey matter, that you’d let yourself enjoy the life you’d made for yourself? Or are you just going to stand there with a terrified look on your face, and hope beyond  _ hope _ that I do not. Stop. Speaking?”

Valkyrie stands there with a terrified look on her face.

Skulduggery strides forward.

Empty.  _ Click. _

Empty.  _ Click.  _

He pushed the gun into her forehead, right above her still unkempt eyebrows.

“Tell me honestly. Are you happy you’re back yet?

She doesn’t answer.

He honors his promises and lowers the revolver, kneeling slightly so it presses against the outer part of her thigh, away from any major arteries. (He thinks.)

Valkyrie cries out and the sound reverberates down his spine. He watches as she drops, pushing her hands into the wound, applying pressure like he taught her.

He looks down at her impassively.

“I should be heading back to my new friends. I don’t know how close they are to resurrecting my ex, but I certainly want to be there when it happens. So - hey.” He tilts his head to meet her eye. “If you don’t bleed out and die right here, I’ll see you soon, okay? Maybe I’ll get a chance to introduce you to Abyssinia before I kill you.”

She’s paying more attention to her leg than him. Typical. He looks at his arm, noticing a speck of blood on his shirt cuff. He observes his torso, alarmed. Her blood is splattered across his crisp white shirt and waistcoat. His gloved fingertips press against his chest, his waistcoat and shirt now  sodden with her blood and bits of brain. He did, he realizes. He  _ did  _ shoot her in the head. How did he not … was the chamber not really empty? When did he…

Valkyrie lets out a whimper, and he looks back at her. She watches him, hurt in her eyes but head perfectly fine. His vision spins, and his clothes are pristine again.

He rises, going up and up.

The speck on his sleeve is still there.

\--

iii.

When he arrives back at Melior’s apartment, they’re waiting for him.

He waves merrily. They must not have much time; he’s sure Valkyrie barked an order to call the Cleavers in the midst of her little shopping trip. Smoke had cuffed Melior and looked annoyed; Skulduggery imagines it must be frustrating to actually have to restrain people when you’re used to bending them easily to your will. 

“Hey, Richard,” says Skulduggery. “You didn’t run?”

“I did,” says Melior, gruffly.

“Not very well, obviously. Valkyrie got halfway through town by the time I caught up to her.”

This makes Smoke chuckle. “Excellent.”

Skulduggery looks at the two of them. “So … now what?”

Smoke glances at his watch. “We’re waiting on Nero to bring us back to Coldheart. I just called Lethe, they’ll be here soon enough.”

“Ah,” says Skulduggery, wishing he had stayed with Valkyrie a little longer. Maybe shot her other leg. (No, that wouldn’t have worked, he only had one bullet.)

He can hear cars in the street; Sanctuary agents didn’t have sirens. They were approaching, fast.

Just when Skulduggery was considering scooping Melior and Smoke up like cats and flying them off somewhere, Nero appears, looking pissed as all hell.

Skulduggery waves, but before he can make a snippy comment, the apartment building is gone and Skulduggery finds himself in standing in what he can only guess is a prison guards’ break room.

And there’s only one prison it could be.

Nero scowled and stormed out of the room immediately with another word.

“Ignore him,” says Razzia, sitting off in the corner, painting her nails. “Your buddy Temper just forced him to be a magic taxi and now he’s being a big  _ baby.  _ I’ll stab him for you, I promise!” she calls to Nero’s retreating back.

If any of the motley group surrounding him is surprised to see Skulduggery, they don’t say it. Lethe and Gant are also missing, but the rest are present. Smoke immediately gets to work, shoving Melior towards a side room like a playground bully.

Skulduggery has visited Coldheart before; but now he realizes they must only have shown him the nice parts of the prison, because this place is a dump. The others had already settled in, going into slumber party mode - (well, Razzia was. He wasn’t sure who was next in the manicure queue.) with no concerns for their living space. As far as a secret base went, it’s pretty dire. The chairs creaked, the carpet was almost  _ certainly  _ stained with blood, and the sofa Razzia was on looking like someone had gutted the cushions for fun, leaving large clouds of stuffing pouring out. Smoke returns, hands free of Melior and replaced with a big book and settles into a wooden chair, which immediately broke a leg under his weight. He just sighs and finds a new one.

Skulduggery watches the crew mill around for a minute more before hopping off the table.

“Well, I’m bored,” he says. “I’m going home to change.”

Memphis laughs. “You’re not going anywhere, skeleton. Your house is most likely already under surveillance.” 

“And how exactly are you planning on stopping me from the incredibly dangerous mission of picking up a non bloodied shirt?”

Memphis just points at Smoke.

“You will not return to your house,” says Smoke, not looking up from the dusty old tome he was reading.

He feels the truth of the words settle in, and returns to his perch on the table with a sigh. “Does someone have a  _ Tide to Go _ pen, at least?”

A second later one nearly becomes permanently stuck in his eye socket. He wrenches it out, looking up and spotting Razzia, still prim on her seat on the wrecked couch. Her tuxedo  _ was _ rather immaculate for someone who was a bit overeager with bloodshed.

“Thank you,” he says, politely, and she gives him double finger guns.

He sets to work, grateful to have something to do, and doesn’t raise his head again until Lethe enters the room, Nero trailing behind, still scowling. 

Lethe gives him what he can only assume is a welcoming head tilt, and spreads his arms. 

“Skulduggery, welcome to the  _ team _ . We’re overjoyed to have you here, and I can not over express my personal  _ gratitude _ with your assistance on bringing in Melior. Please let us know  _ anything  _ I can do to make you comfortable while you’re here with us. Do you have any  _ questions _ for me? Any at  _ all _ ?”

“One,” Skulduggery says. “Is Valkyrie still alive?”

The room erupts into sound, overlapping shouts of protest.

“You didn’t kill her?” Memphis gapes.

“How hard can it be to kill her?” Razzia scoffs.

“You had one job!” Nero barks. 

“Is she alive?” Skulduggery asks again, over the chaos, body very still, not liking not having an  _ immediate  _ answer.

Lethe sighs, raising and hand to quiet the chaos. “Well, well. Gant shall be  _ pleased _ at least. No, I do not  _ know  _ if she’s still alive. I suppose you’ll have to be  _ patient.” _

Skulduggery’s shoulders tense. He’s never been any good at that.

Lethe starts on some sort of boring speech about Skulduggery being an essential piece of the plan, bla bla bla, and Skulduggery slips out of the room whilst the others are distracted. (Or not distracted, maybe. More like barely resisting the urge to kill him themselves.) He finds a nice dusty hallway and pulls out his phone from his inner pocket.

He has eight missed calls, but unsurprisingly, none from Valkyrie. He taps the buttons until he finds her name, and calls.

She picks up on the third ring; he can hear her shallow shaky breathing in the receiver. Relief fills him; she’s still alive.

Good. Blood loss would be a rather pathetic murder attempt. Next time, he’s pulling out all the stops. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANNNND last chapter! Warning for a couple brief mentions of suicide.
> 
> Sorry for the delay, it's been a rough month and a half for me. but i had to get to the ooey gooey bits of this book, man, I HAD TO.
> 
> anyway, for my own enjoyment/the matter of getting this done in 2017, lmao, i went with more of "filling the gaps" approach than a straight up rewrite. for those who might like to fall along with the book, here's where where each segment takes place after:
> 
> i. Chapter 39  
> ii. Chapter 50  
> iii. Chapter 56  
> iv. Chapter 62  
> v. Chapter 64  
> vi. & vii Chapter 67  
> viii. Chapter 71
> 
>  
> 
> Will hopefully return with some more fic in 2018 before book 11 (whenever it comes out, i guess.) Thank you for your support and lovely comments!

i. 

When was the last time he killed someone he loved?

It’s a tricky question. Not because there was any shortage of people he killed … more a lack of people he loved. He still didn’t know if he had loved Abyssinia and killed her anyway, or if he never really cared about her at all. It was tricky. People probably had a point when they called him a sociopath.

Right now, he’s pretending he couldn’t hear his brand new friends speaking about him in the room over, a fun hobby for those bored to death.

“--We should have taken the girl,” Nero hisses.

“Lethe asked for the skeleton, who, you know, is _nearly unkillable,_ so it made plenty of fucking sense to pick him. How would she have killed him, Nero, pray tell?”

Skulduggery can hear the smirk in Nero’s reply. “She could hand him the gun and say _please.”_

Skulduggery’s pride takes a thorough beating at that, but marching into the room and punching Nero in the solar plexus would have probably just made him look _fragile-ego’d._

Smoke barks out a single syllable of a laugh. “Ha. Look on the bright side; he’ll probably kill himself after he kills her. Two birds with one stone.”

He thinks something volatile about Smoke, and then his programming from the same man kicks in and forces his violent urges to settle, like choppy waves.  He pulls his legs up onto the ruined sofa, looking like a pretzel in an excellent suit, and glowers at the wall. He thought being on the bad guys side would be a nice change of pace after a rather monotonous five years, but so far it’s just _boring_.

The door creaks open, interrupting his sulk, and he looks up in surprise to see Lethe stroll in all his black rubbered glory. Every time he had seen Lethe he had been accompanied by his entire entourage, and to see him alone was bizarre. He looks … small. More human, without having a human face present to juxtapose against. More human than Skulduggery does, at least.

“How are you _feeling_ , Mr. Pleasant?” Lethe asks, closing the door behind them.

“Just dandy, Doctor,” he chirps, and Lethe’s hand freezes for a second on the handle before calmly returning to his side.

“Wonderful, wonderful.” He sits right next to Skulduggery, like they’re about to be bosom buddies. “We were hoping you were still _holding up_ . I’m sure this day has been right _startling_ for you.”

“I’ve shot plenty of people,” Skulduggery says, trying not to lean too obviously away from him. Was he using the royal _we_?

  
“But not Miss Cain,” Lethe says, shaking his head.

“I shot her reflection,” he says. Twice, technically.

“And how did that make you _feel?_ ” Lethe asks.

“I felt nothing,” he says, honestly. And then: “I did enjoy shooting her today, though. That was fun.”

“Good, good,” Lethe says, patting Skulduggery’s leg, still bent into an acute angle. “That’s what we like to hear.”

“I am curious about one thing, though,” Skulduggery says. “I’m volatile at the best of times. So why, exactly, have I not been unable to keep myself from killing, say, everyone in a hundred mile radius? Besides the ones Smoke’s explicitly told me are off limits.”

“Hmm,” says Lethe, tenting his hands together. “Excellent question. From what I’ve been told, the more you _care_ about someone, the more _hate_ while corrupted. You don’t strike me as the _type_ who cares much about other people. No offense meant, _of course_.”

“None taken,” Skulduggery says. “But Valkyrie isn’t _that_ great.”

The black rubber face gives him a look that might be pitying.

Skulduggery peers at him, brim of his hat dipping low. “What will I be doing after this job is done, anyway? Am I being let go?”

“Oh, what’s the fun in telling you? I like thinking of the _possibilities._ Valkyrie could die. You could die. You could both die, that would probably be the best for us. Or perhaps luck will be on your side.” He contemplates it, chin cupped in both hands. “Although, I’m afraid your relationship will never recover anyway.”

Skulduggery spine straightens. “Of course not. I’m going to kill her.”

“Yes,” says Lethe, “but if you don’t…”

“Are you doubting me?” Skulduggery asks, sharpish, shoulders tensing.

Lethe tilts his head. “Is it easier if I doubt Smoke’s ability to keep you corrupted?”

Skulduggery considers this. “Yes,” he says, at last. “That’s much better. Why are you even thinking about this? Isn’t killing Valkyrie a company goal here?”

“Not for me,” Lethe says, with a shrug. “I really couldn’t care either way. But I think about every possibility. I always do. Perhaps Valkyrie hides during the remaining duration of your corruption; she’s proved very apt at it the last five years - and you manage to avoid a rematch with me … And then once it’s all over, you’ll have another disappointing reunion.”

“You’ve really thought about this,” Skulduggery muses. “Like, an almost frightening amount.”

“I told you,” says Lethe. “That’s what I do.” He tilts his head. “You haven’t?”

“Recently? Nope. Mostly just thinking of how to kill her. Before, sure, but…”

“Oh, I’m sure it agonized you then,” says Lethe. “Thinking about it over and over. You aren’t capable of sleep, can you? So many hours to fill, staying up and thinking about it. Thinking about her, and how it’s all over after so long together... You can’t possibly still love her, can you? After all these years? Why bother lying to yourself?”

Skulduggery has been watching the man through the entire shift in conversation; studying, really. Lethe mirrors Skulduggery’s posture, his mannerisms. But his build was completely different than Skulduggery’s, and…

“What happened to your voice?” Skulduggery asks.

Lethe sits up straight. “I don’t understand the _question,_ ” he says, and then stands like they hadn’t been in the middle of a conversation. “Come along,” he says. “There’s _someone_ you should _meet_.”

\-- 

ii. 

It was very satisfying to finally play _I’ve Got No Strings_ after having it stuck in his head all day. So satisfying, in fact, that Skulduggery decided to play it eleven times before Cadaverous snapped, removing his hands from the steering wheel. He snatched the phone and swapped it to classical music, using his elbow to keep the Cadillac from veering off the road. Skulduggery’s fine with that. His phone uses on Valkyrie’s Spotify account. He wonders if she noticed the account activity.  

Gant is hard to talk to, but _incredibly_ easy to annoy, which is Skulduggery’s second favorite type of person. It was nice to have a sounding board who wouldn’t interrupt his talking with witty remarks (Valkyrie), or weird interrogations (Lethe - who knew, huh?). Gant didn’t actually reply to him until he brought up his very dead partner, and Skulduggery admired that he did indeed jump to his defense. It was a good trait to have in a friend. A totally _pointless_ trait, now that Jeremiah was dead and rotting, but still.

“Jeremiah became my reason,” Gant said between gritted teeth, not taking his eyes off the road. “Before I took him under my wing, I was lost. I was despairing. And then I met him, and I recognized that he could be better than I ever was. He just needed the guidance.” He exhales now, gives Skulduggery a sidelong glance. “I know what you’re thinking. I know what everyone thinks. Minds go to sordid places.”

He gives him a long look on _sordid_. Skulduggery pretends not to understand the five dollar word.

“... But the bond between Jeremiah and myself was a thing of purity.”

Skulduggery pretends not to understand the comparison. (why, oh why, is he now thinking of her legs when he's supposed to be thinking of killing her..?)

“Hey, I’m not judging,” says the detective who really has no right to judge anyone, ever. “We have a lot of common, you and I,” he says, to convince himself more than Gant. (Gant’s looks are getting so sidelong they’re threatening to poke him in the cheekbone.) “Especially now, with the murderous impulses.”

Gant gives him a look that says _your murderous impulses don’t count,_ and Skulduggery is reminded, strangely, of how grateful he is sensitives can’t read his mind.

Maybe Valkyrie would develop the ability.

…. Yeah, he’ll definitely kill her first.

\-- 

iii.

The day was going pretty great - he was talking with Gant, he was telling Gant he was going to kill him, he was bonding with Gant, he was threatening to kill Gant (again) … and then Melior had to drop the little truth bomb of Valkyrie being an backup option as a sacrificial lamb.

“No. Absolutely not,” he says, automatically. “Nope. No.”

“Why not?” Lethe says, tilting his head. “We _must.”_

“I said,” Skulduggery says, voice hard, “I was going to kill her.”

Lethe waves a hand dismissively. “She’ll _have_ to be killed to be used as a sacrifice, _or_ we don’t use her at all and she’s here and ready to be killed. Either way, everything works out _splendidly_. Except for you, Skulduggery, who _still_ will not be killing her, and also will be out of a very _lovely_ partner when you come to.”

“I said no,” Skulduggery says. “Find. Someone. Else.”

Melior tilts his head, like he’s hearing something very far away. “Lethe is right,” he says, at last. “You must bring Valkyrie here. It’s… it’s the only option, no one else will do. I insist … for my husband’s sake,” he adds, as an afterthought, and Skulduggery crosses his arms.

“Listen to the surprisingly sensical man, Skulduggery,” Gant says. “Who’s collecting her?”

“Ah, that,” says Lethe, and taps his chin in thought.

While they talk, Melior leans in. “We’ll get Valkyrie here,” he says, slowly. “And, I, of course, will leave her as my last possible option. Give you as _long as possible_.”

“To kill Gant…?” Skulduggery says.

“Sure,” Melior says, and then raises his eyebrows. “Or, you know. Whatever.”

Before Skulduggery can come up with anything witty in response, Lethe spins on his heel and turns back to him, pointing at his chest. “Team assignment will be Nero for _transportation_ , Smoke for any potentially _messy_ encounters with other sorcerers, and you for _muscle_. Or polite convincing, I suppose, it’s up to _you_. And of course, you can’t…”

“Kill her,” Skulduggery says, like a sullen child being told he can’t have dessert until he finishes his vegetables. “Yes, I know.”

\--

iv.

Skulduggery’s feeling a little weird.

It’s like his thoughts are two pieces of printed words placed on top of each other - making it impossible to read either page. Sometimes, it shifts, and a word gets across as the two pages matched up. But for the most part, it’s … muddled. Inconsistent. Distracting.

Valkyrie’s here, and about to die, which is good, but Gant (or anyone else, he supposes, she has _a lot_ of enemies here) might beat him to the punch, which is bad. She’s in bad shape - covered in dried blood, a split lip, a swollen eye, a dark bruise on her cheekbone, and all he can think is -- before the shooting and the elbowing and the punching of the past few days, the only other time he’s ever intentionally hurt her was in front of the Accelerator. And that was to save her life.

“Irony,” he murmurs, sing song, and Valkyrie gives him a quick glance from the corner of her eye.  Lethe ushers Melior over, and the doctor takes a running leap to meet them. Who’s idea was the lava lake? It really was … what would Valkyrie say, _extra?_

He almost asks her.

When Melior sees Valkyrie’s bloodied mouth, he tuts with concern and raises his hand and fixes her lovely face right up. Somehow it’s harder to look at than the bloodied and bruised version.

Melior takes a step back, and Smoke throws a hissy fit - and Lethe comes to the doctor’s defense.

It hits him then, looking at Melior and Lethe beside each other, a familiar awkwardness in the air, a recognizable energy he hasn’t put together until just this second. The mannerisms, the fighting, the strange interrogation about loved ones...

And huh, look at that, he’s solved the case while possessed. A new record for him.

Too bad he can’t tell Valkyrie about it.

\-- 

v.

Melior is beaming when Skulduggery and Valkyrie stand back to back, and it occurs to him that the man was deliberately stalling the entire time, buying Skulduggery time to get uncorrupted. He must have been keeping better track of the time than Skulduggery was. Smart, smart man. He hoped he wouldn’t have to kill his husband today.

He’s in the middle of trying to keep _Melior_ from killing his own husband when he feels something grab his leg, like something in a cheesy horror movie. His skull reels back as he feels his thoughts jumble again - the two pages turning into an giant word search where only two words emerge.

_KILL HER._

Valkyrie’s face has returned to the familiar terror, and she raises a hand in defense and he hits her, sending her down to her knees and groaning. (Kill her.) His uses his magic to bring his gun right to his hand (kill her) and right into her forehead.

“Skulduggery,” Valkyrie says, voice very very soft, and he tilts his head and takes time to revel, taking a fistful of her hair and tugging hard, bringing her beautiful head and very remarkable brain closer.

So, yes, when _was_ the last time he killed someone he loved? It must have been his brother. He never told Valkyrie that. It was something he was ashamed of, of course, and thought she’d be disgusted with him. And after that thing with Alice, he worried it’d just sound like he was trying to one up her in the tragic family thing. But it had to have been him, he must have been the last.

Now Valkyrie, two centuries later. ( _Kill her!)_

If there was a heaven, or hell, or ghosts, or force ghosts, he wondered if they would meet and make fun of him together. They were both good at that.

Kill her.

His finger curls around the trigger without him really thinking about it.

Kill her.

His fingers tighten in her hair. He doesn’t think he’s actually touched her hair before, aside from a brief brush off her forehead. Maybe not really the best way to start.

Kill her.

 _Shut up_ , he tells the voice, even as his body aches and his teeth feel like they’re going to rip themselves out of his skull. _I’m revelling._

kill her kill her kill her kill her KILL her KILL HER KILL HER KILL HER KILL HER KILL HER

Valkyrie looks up at him, dark eyes clear and mouth in a thin line.

He looks down at her. _Kill her._ What will she say to her would be murderer KILL, he HER wonders KILL, what HER KILL HER KILL HER KILL HER KILL HER KILL HER _KILL HER_

“I love you,” her voice says, clear as a bell even over the roar, _(KILLHERKILLHERKILLHERKILLHERKILLHERKILLER_ ) the scream of the voice in his head. Something deep inside him is feeling very irritated with him, and it is trying very hard to be heard over the screaming. _Valkyrie can say it while she’s about to have her brains blown out_ , it says, in a voice not unlike Ghastly’s. _Why can’t you?_

So he does.

“I love you, too,” he says, and his hand jerks away even as his finger pulls the trigger.

\-- 

vi. 

He’s still hearing the echo of Abyssinia’s laugh when they all land in a heap in front of Corrivial Academy’s South Tower. Immediately he presses his hands against Valkyrie’s shoulder, because _of course_ she got injured again _,_ because nothing was ever easy _._ Everyone else is similarly dazed, trying to orient themselves.

“No more,” the young Corrivial student cries, hands up. “I can’t. You’ll have to walk to the healing center, I’m exhausted.”

The student drops, and Omen dives to catch his friend, face a mask of concern.

“Omen, Temper, one of you call the Sanctuary,” Skulduggery barks.

“I don’t even have a phone anymore,” Temper says, voice betraying a hint of hysteria.

“Then run inside the school,” Skulduggery snaps.

“Why don’t we have Melior call?”

Skulduggery takes a glance back at the doctor, his hands still on Valkyrie’s wound. Richard Melior is sitting with his head in his hands. Lethe-- _Savant_ , is unconscious beside him.

“Richard is dealing with his own problems,” Skulduggery says. “Just make the damn--”

“I’ve got it,” Omen says, cradling his friend with one arm while the other holds up his cellphone.

“Thank you,” Skulduggery says, voice warm with gratitude, and Omen gives him a shaky nod.

“We’ll need medical attention for Valkyrie and Savant, Omen. What about your friend?”

“Never should be okay on her own,” Omen says. “Orange juice and crackers help.”

Skulduggery nods, crossing things off his mental list while Omen relays his order into the phone.

“I’m sorry,” Melior says, in a very small voice. “I’d heal Valkyrie, but…”

“Don’t worry,” Skulduggery says. “She’s been in worse scrapes than this.” Valkyrie stirs beneath him.

“Such as literally ten minutes ago,” she adds, voice a hoarse whisper.

“That is true.”

“Hey,” Valkyrie says, quieter still. “If I nap, will you make sure I don’t die before I get to Synecdoche?”

“Don’t nap,” he says.

She groans, and he leans in closer to her, forehead against hers. “Stay with me,” he orders.

“Fine,” she sighs, and leans into his shoulder, eyes closed.

She’s very very warm. “That better not be napping,” he warns.

“It’s not,” she mutters, sullen. They sit like that until the ambulance arrives. He reluctantly gives her up, watching as they put her on a stretcher and take her away.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he calls to her, as she’s lifted into the back, and he keeps his hand out until the doors shut.

He less out a huge breath as the ambulance takes away Melior, Savant, and Valkyrie, and an attendant brings out shock blankets and food for the kids. He’s feeling very shaken, as it’s been an incredibly eventful last twenty minutes, even _without_ his ex literally coming back to life.

But he feels like himself again.

Also, killing Smoke was _incredibly_ satisfying.

He gives the Sanctuary officers and gathering professors present an abbreviated recap of the last few days from his point of view - ignoring their looks of shock and horror for time's sake - and tries to think of anything else he needs to do.

He turns back, once they’ve set off on their own tasks and phone calls, and Temper is, totally inexplicably, grinning at him.

“What’s with the face?” Skulduggery asks, baffled.

Temper grins harder. “You _know_ what’s with the face.”

“I do not.”

Temper tilts his head in the direction of the road the ambulance sped off of and Skulduggery very suddenly realizes that with all the screaming of his personal murder voice back in Coldheart, he did not quite notice that they had an audience.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Skulduggery says, turning around, and Temper snickers.

“Never seen a skeleton blush before,” he says.

“That’s not even possible,” Skulduggery mutters. He looks to see Omen, wrapped up in his shock blanket, with a matching little grin as well, and _that_ is enough of that.

“I’m meeting them at the hospital,” he says, taking a step to hover in the air.

“Oh, I’m sure you are,” Temper says, and Skulduggery sends him the dirtiest look he knows how to give.

Of course, there’s only one person who can even recognize it, but whatever.

\--

vii. 

Valkyrie’s taking the nap she wanted when he gets into her sterile white room.

She’s already looking much much better. Just beneath the hem of her hospital gown he can see the faint remnants of a scar. His fingers grip the side of the bed. The scar would be gone soon, and maybe she’d let it slip from her mind. But not his. He’d be remembering that for the rest of his life.

He sets down the vase, filled with surprisingly fragrant flowers, on her bedside table, and sits in the chair in the corner.  He stays there, trying to gauge the appropriate amount of times to glance over at her while she sleeps, until she stirs and turns to look at him.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hi,” he says back. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

“I’m not sure you of all people get to use that phrase,” she says, and he laughs.

“I got you flowers,” Skulduggery says, gesturing at the vase of red roses. “And these ones you can actually keep.”

She smiles at that. “Fuck off, TSA.”

He laughs again. “Indeed.”

There’s a period of silence while she admires the roses, reaching out to stroke a petal. Skulduggery takes a deep breath. “Valkyrie, I am so sorry …”

“Don’t,” she says, immediately. “No, really, don’t. It’s not your fault. It’s okay. You’re okay, I’m okay …”

“Well, of course I’m okay,” he says, not really sure if he should insist on continuing to apologize. The whole process is kinda new to him. “Why wouldn’t I be? I mean, besides the evil thing. I’d probably be fine. I was adapting pretty well.”

“I was thinking more of _after_ you were uncorrupted.”

“Ah.”

“And when you’d realize that you had killed me.”

“Oh,” he says.

“All I really wanted,” she says, holding the bed’s sheets between her hands, “was you to never snap out of it.”

Skulduggery’s non existent heart drops. “Did you… you wanted to…”

“No,” she says, quickly. “No. No, I just … if I was gonna go, I didn’t want you to go back to normal and you’d have to … that you would be …”

“Alone.”

“Yeah.”

Skulduggery looks up at the white ceiling of the room, so cheap looking compared to the healing center in the Sanctuary. “Well, we don’t have to think about that.”

“We don’t,” she agrees. “ … Can you come by the house tonight?”

“Of course.”

“See you there, then.”

“See you.”

\-- 

viii.

“Are you with me?”

“Until the end,” she says, her face suddenly very close.

Skulduggery finds himself staring over her shoulder, and discovers that the red roses have moved to her bedside table here.

She notices him looking.  “I’m thinking of putting them in the pot I bought,” she says, very proudly.

“... That’s what the vase is for.”

“I like the pot,” she says. “I’m using the pot. The flowers were a gift, they belong to me now and you can’t force your vase bias on me.”

“Fine,” he agrees. “You’re free to furnish your house as badly as you’d like.”

She rolls her eyes good naturedly, but then her expression changes, grows … well, he can’t really tell exactly what she’s feeling, especially when one hand is pressed against his chest, the other still fumbling with his tie.

“You said you loved me,” she says, addressing his tie.

Skulduggery swallows. “I did. It was long overdue.”

Her eyes are half lidded, head still bent. “Is that something reserved for situations where you almost kill me?”

“No,” he says, firmly. “I’m going to say it until you get sick of me saying it.”

She looks up at him. “And then?”

“Then I’ll do it just to annoy you.”

She laughs. “Better get started, then,” she says, looking up at him, still holding onto his tie. He’s pretty sure she’s just made it more crooked. (If it was even crooked in the first place.)

“Of course, dear,” he says, tipping his head into the perfect angle whispering into her ear.

So he does.


End file.
